In WO2012/123896 a device for radiographic and nuclear imaging of an object is disclosed wherein a rotating gantry is provided with opposed first and second support members. An x-ray source is mounted on the first support member and is adapted to emit an x-ray beam in an x-ray beam direction. An x-ray detector is mounted on the second support member and is adapted to image onto the x-ray detector the x-ray beam emitted by the x-ray source in the beam direction.
In WO2012/123896 the rotating gantry is additionally provided with two gamma cameras. Each of the gamma cameras comprises a collimator with one or more collimator openings and each of the gamma cameras further comprises a gamma radiation detector. Further each of the gamma cameras has an associated field of view. The fields of view of the gamma cameras overlap partly, and this overlap defines a focus volume (F) that is seen by the two gamma cameras. The focus volume (F) is located between the x-ray source and the x-ray detector so that the x-ray beam passes through the focus volume (F) and the focus volume (F) is seen by the x-ray detector.
The device disclosed in WO2012/123896 further comprises a computerized image processing unit that is linked to the x-ray detector and is linked to the gamma cameras. This image processing unit is programmed to reconstruct a gamma camera image and is adapted to fuse the gamma camera image with an x-ray image obtained with the x-ray detector into a fused image. The device comprises a display adapted to display an x-ray image, a gamma radiation image, and/or a fused x-ray and gamma radiation image.
In use the gantry of the WO2012/123896 device is in rotation during acquisition of both the x-ray images and the gamma emission images. Thereby a 3-dimensional x-ray image and a 3-dimension emission image are created, which 3-dimensional images can be fused.
The method and device disclosed in WO2012/123896 suffer from an undue complexity both as to the requirements placed on the computerized reconstruction and fusing of the images into a fused image as to the mechanical structure of the device itself.